Germany: Holy War Erupts in Hamburg

"We are living in Hamburgistan." — Daniel Abdin, imam of Hamburg's Al-Nour Mosque.

One politician has been repeatedly threatened with beheading as the price to pay for leading a fundraising campaign to provide food and water for Kurds in northern Iraq.

"As a society we must ask ourselves: how can it be that people who live in Germany and... born and raised here, are supporters of a brutal, inhuman and fundamentalist group such as the IS and attack peaceful protestors with knives, sticks and machetes. Here in Germany, the IS threatens to become a refuge for frustrated young people…." — Claudia Roth, Vice-President, German Parliament.

"Under no circumstances should [politicians who receive death threats] give in and change their stance, otherwise the extremists will have achieved their objectives." — Wolfgang Bosbach, CDU official.

Parts of downtown Hamburg, the second-largest city in Germany, resembled a war zone after hundreds of supporters of the jihadist group Islamic State [IS] engaged in bloody street clashes with ethnic Kurds.

The violence—which police say was as ferocious as anything seen in Germany in recent memory—is fuelling a sense of foreboding about the spillover effects of the fighting in Syria and Iraq.

Some analysts believe that rival Muslim groups in Germany are deliberately exploiting the ethnic and religious tensions in the Middle East to stir up trouble on the streets of Europe.

The unrest began on the evening of October 7, when around 400 Kurds gathered outside the Al-Nour mosque near the central train station in Hamburg's St. George district to protest against IS attacks on the Syrian Kurdish town of Kobani.

According to police, the initially peaceful protest turned violent when the Kurds were confronted by a rival group of around 400 Salafists armed with baseball bats, brass knuckles, knives, machetes and metal rods used to hold meat in kebab restaurants.

In the melee that followed, more than a dozen people were injured, including one person who nearly had his leg chopped off by someone wielding a machete, and another person who was stabbed in the stomach with a kebab rod.

Some 1,300 police officers, brandishing batons and accompanied by water cannons, were deployed to halt the clashes, which lasted into the early morning hours of October 8. In the final tally, hundreds of weapons were seized and 22 people were arrested.

German police in riot gear, accompanied by armored vehicles and water cannons, charge into a street battle between Kurds and radical Islamists in Hamburg, Oct. 8, 2014. (Image source: N24 video screenshot)

"I had the feeling that we are living in Hamburgistan," the imam of the Al-Nour mosque, Daniel Abdin, told the German newsmagazine Der Spiegel. "The atmosphere was very, very explosive."

Police said they were shocked by what they described as an unprecedented level of violence.

In an interview with the newspaper Passau Neue Presse, the chairman of the German Police Union, Rainer Wendt, reported that police in Hamburg "experienced life-threatening brute force" by perpetrators who were armed "to the teeth." Wendt warned that the IS-Kurdish conflict is "threatening to unleash a proxy war on German soil."

A police official in Hamburg, Gerhard Kirsch, said the level of the violence points to a new "dangerous dimension" that "we have so far not seen at other demonstrations."

The chairman of the German Police Union in Hamburg, Joachim Lenders, described the viciousness as unprecedented. "The violence in the early hours of Wednesday was of a ruthless and inhuman brutality as I have rarely experienced," he said, adding that without the timely deployment of the police there would almost certainly have been fatalities. Lenders added:

"If in the middle of Hamburg 800 hostile people are fighting each other with machetes, knives and iron rods, there must be consequences for the perpetrators. Politically motivated extremists and religious fanatics have brought a conflict to Hamburg that cannot be solved here."

On the same day of the unrest in Hamburg, dozens of mostly Chechen Muslim immigrants clashed with Kurdish Yazidis—a non-Arab and non-Muslim minority that has been persecuted by IS—in Celle, a town in Lower Saxony that is home to more than 7,000 Yazidis. Police said the violence, in which nine people were injured, was fuelled via social media after radical Muslim preachers sent out a call to Islamists to confront the Yazidis.

The conflict in Celle was reminiscent of—but far more violent than—the Muslim-Yazidi clashes that occurred in the eastern Westphalian town of Herford in August.

"Solidarity with Kobani" demonstrations have also taken place in Munich—where protestors waving large Kurdish flags occupied the offices of the Christian Social Union [CSU], the Bavaria-based sister party to Germany's ruling Christian Democratic Union party [CDU]—as well as in the western German cities of Berlin, Bremen, Göttingen, Hamm, Hannover, Kiel, Oldenburg and Stuttgart.

Germany is home to an estimated 4.3 million Muslims, one million Kurds and 60,000 Yazidis. According to the 2013 annual report (published in June 2014) of the German domestic intelligence agency, the Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz [BfV], Germany is also home to 30 active Islamist groups and 43,000 Islamists, including 950 members of the Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah, 1,300 members of the Muslim Brotherhood and 5,500 Salafists.

Salafism is a radically anti-Western ideology that openly seeks to replace democracy in Germany (and in other parts of the West) with an Islamic government based on Sharia law.

Although Salafists make up only a fraction of the Muslims in Germany, authorities are increasingly concerned that many of those attracted to Salafi ideology are impressionable young Muslims who are susceptible to perpetrating terrorist acts in the name of Islam.

German authorities have faced criticism for being overly complacent concerning the rise of Salafism in the country. On October 2, for example, the German public broadcaster ARD revealed that German officials have for many years pursued a secret policy of encouraging German Islamists to travel abroad rather than to invest in counter-radicalization efforts. According to ARD, the general idea was that if German jihadists were intent on committing terrorist acts, it would be better that they do so somewhere else than inside Germany.

The overall aim was to "protect our population" by exporting the problem, the head of counter-terrorism for Bavarian Police, Ludwig Schierghofer, told ARD. The reasoning was "to bring those persons who pose a risk that they will commit terrorist attacks outside of the country," he said. "If someone had become radicalized and wanted to leave, then the policy was to allow them to leave or even accelerate their departure by various means."

An estimated 450 German Muslims have traveled to Syria and Iraq, and at least 100 are now believed to have returned to Germany.

Meanwhile, a growing number of German politicians are receiving death threats from German Salafists.

One such politician, Tobias Huch of the (classical liberal) Free Democratic Party [FDP], has been repeatedly threatened with beheading as the price to pay for leading a fundraising campaign to provide food and water for Kurds in northern Iraq.

"I am not afraid, but I have become more careful," says Huch, who now receives police protection. He says he has altered his daily comings and goings in order to be less predictable. Among other lifestyle changes, he has cut out regular visits to restaurants, pubs and other public venues.

Another politician, Ismail Tipi of the ruling CDU, is paying the price for criticizing the rise of Salafism in Germany. "I receive threats almost every day," Tipi says. "The death threats against me have no limits. The Salafists want to behead me, shoot me, stone me, execute me and they have many other death wishes for me."

According to CDU official Wolfgang Bosbach, politicians who receive death threats should not allow themselves to be intimidated. "Under no circumstances should they give in and change their stance, otherwise the extremists will have achieved their objectives."

The head of the FDP, Christian Lindner agrees. "It is unacceptable for Liberals to allow religious extremists to take an ax to the central values of our constitution. We will not give in to threats and intimidation, rather we will demand the determined reaction of the rule of law."

By contrast, the Vice President of the German Parliament, Claudia Roth of the Green Party, believes the growing radicalization of Muslims in Germany points to problems in German society. In an interview with the newspaper Die Welt, Roth said:

"The violent clashes between Kurdish and Islamist groups in German cities and on German streets refer more to internal German problems than the situation in northern Syria and northern Iraq.

"As a society we must ask ourselves: how can it be that people who live in Germany and in large part are born and raised here, are supporters of a brutal, inhuman and fundamentalist terror group such as the IS and attack peaceful protestors with knives, sticks and machetes. Here in Germany, the IS threatens to become a refuge for frustrated young people who lack future prospects."

While politicians debate causes and solutions to the problem of radical Islam, police throughout Germany remain on alert for more violence.

Soeren Kern is a Senior Fellow at the New York-basedGatestone Institute. He is also Senior Fellow for European Politics at the Madrid-based Grupo de Estudios Estratégicos / Strategic Studies Group. Follow him onFacebook and onTwitter.

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29 Reader Comments

WakeUPWorld • Oct 24, 2014 at 22:20

Am shocked and saddened to learn that our Germanic ancestors have allowed their nation to come to this. But then, the whole Western world seems to be caught in some kind of mesmerized enthralled state where Political Correctness rules, no matter how devastating the consequences might be.
WAKE UP, WORLD.

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Stay Frosty • Oct 23, 2014 at 17:36

Fascism was a dark period in Germany; resulting in the loss of life in the tens of millions across Europe. The staggering economic losses were detrimental to post-war reconciliation. Islamic Fascism is the same evil with a different name. The Western nations must confront this dark ideology militarily, economically, and politically in order to achieve peace. If this is not done soon, we could see bloodshed from North Africa and Europe spread throughout European cities and North America. Evil--no matter where its ugly head pops up must be addressed jointly by the western nations. Islamic fanaticism is at an all time high as evidenced by ISIS's unusually brutal techniques instituted across the Middle East. A lot of this evil is predicated on religious theocracy fomented by Saudi backed religious education. This type of education has been going on for decades across Europe and the Middle East. I propose a stringent military defeat against ISIS and the implementation of a standardized Quran that is acceptable by moral nations. If we do not address this rising threat, humanity in the future will suffer with unspeakable horrors and war. It is up to our generation to rectify and come to a solution to this crisis.

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jesus bortoni • Oct 20, 2014 at 19:12

As Merkel has said, multiculturalism is not working. However, there IS a solution. If they can count the various factions, especially the violent ones, surely they can arrest them and deport them. This WILL have to be faced at some point. Any delay in implementation will create a process that feeds on itself. The danger, of course, is when that violence spills out into the population at large. With hundreds of jihadis returning, that danger is not far off.

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Elliott • Oct 19, 2014 at 22:26

Political /Radical Islamism - the Mad Dog of religious ideologies, built on a perverted interpretation of religion, intensely xenophobic and supremacist, spreading death and destruction wherever it goes, the mortal enemy of freedom and liberty.

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DrJLDneurology • Oct 17, 2014 at 15:17

It is not German society. These things are happening everywhere, and to blame the German people is nothing but a fraud initiated by the German Left. To believe this is to believe that society is responsible for all violence that occurs, and excuses the violent from being responsible for their antisocial behavior. Many, like their terrorist friends in the Middle East, are psychopaths who revel in the violent side of Islam (which is considerable, especially for a religion).

What I really don't understand is allowing ISIS fighters back into Germany. They will make the violence Germany has seen even worse.

These youngsters are Muslims who don't want to live a Western kind of life. They are fighting the wars in the Middle East inside Germany because for various reasons most cannot go to ISIS or Kurdistan where the war is centered. But they are serving the IS Caliphate by sowing terror in Germany, and elsewhere, and are doing their best to bully citizens into giving in to their excessive demands.

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Ann • Oct 17, 2014 at 03:46

Yes, Claudia, the problem IS Islam and the problem is YOU. I know the situation here in Germany well. And I know what politicians and, yes, church leaders are doing about it. In Munich, for example, Michael Stürzenburger, a Freedom Party leader and journalist who took to the streets to get out the truth about Islam, has been fined thousands of €s, had his bank accounts stopped by four different banks, has had his successful petition against the building of the Munich Mega-mosque (20,000 signatures) annulled for lack of his home address on the application (not surprising considering the number of death threats he receives) and he now faces imprisonment --for telling the truth. The list goes on and on.

The refugee business is a growing industry here. Politicians and leftist do-gooders are capitalizing on the crisis in the Middle East by building up a tax-funded job program for social workers and bureaucrats. The object is new voters. They are so busy with welcome cafes that they ignore the dangerous situation they are propagating. Members of the police I know are leaving the country with their families for South America. They know what's coming and they know their hands are tied by politically correct politics. The police are now advertising for non-citizens to apply!

If any of this sounds familiar to Americans, beware. You are next.

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Paul E. Dormont • Oct 16, 2014 at 21:52

When first I read this article I was completely confused as to how Germany had made such a turn around. I was, in 1978-1979, a resident and guest worker in Hamburg. At that time, the powers-that-be were contemplating and did in fact remove certain foreign parties who had never become assimilated to any degree. They were simply living off the teat of the very strong Federal Republic and needed to be sent back to their native lands. Multiple generations of foreigners who had never even seen their ethnic homelands were repatriated to them. They didn't speak their native language, hadn't lived in the culture and were used to the wealth that a mature country had to provide for them. The pattern becomes ever clearer that where liberalism gains a foothold, standards of living will deteriorate. The rejoining of the DDR with the FRD has obviously resulted in the dilution of the strength so hard won after the second world war. That a Green occupies the seat of Vice President of the German parliament clearly demonstrates how far the departure from pragmatism has been accomplished in Germany. There appears not to be a single scrap of recognition that man is, and always will be, a competitive and cutthroat animal. Deal with that fundamental aspect of the human in order to understand why a single world order is impossible through peaceful means and you will begin to understand why there will always be separate and self determining factions. For this individual determinism to be effective, borders, boundaries and exclusions were made by each political, social entity. Nothing is new. Clean house and keep it clean. Violence is not necessary except in extreme circumstances. Law making and enforcement can be the key.

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Maxwell Jump • Oct 16, 2014 at 21:16

"As a society we must ask ourselves: how can it be that people who live in Germany and in large part are born and raised here, are supporters of a brutal, inhuman and fundamentalist terror group such as the IS and attack peaceful protestors with knives, sticks and machetes."

Really, you must ask yourself this? Leftism is truly a mental illness! For your enlightenment: the DAESH supporters are thugs first, Muslims second, and (again) Muslim third in degree of importance in their lives, being a German citizen probably doesn't even show up on their radar. Other than the laughs at the gullibility of the West in general, and Europe in particular in supporting them and pretending they're citizens.

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ubik • Oct 16, 2014 at 21:08

Bet on ISIS. They are growing, and Kurds have no allies.Good luck Germany!

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Meyer Mussry • Oct 16, 2014 at 20:33

The Greens in Germany are just as bad as the Greens in Australia who have declared the ISIS is not a terrorist organisation. I hope that the public sees from their statements that they are a bunch of spaced out nuts who have no idea of reality.

Germany has a real problem, and needs to simultaneously beef up its security agencies as well as build links with moderate Muslim organisations, who represent the bulk of Muslims and are bearing the brunt of the public backlash against the Islamists.

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Melissa • Oct 16, 2014 at 14:24

Claudia Roth wins the Dhimmi Of The Year award for pushing her party's agenda over common sense. When will Leftists learn that there are other forces at work in the world besides economics?

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Cornfed • Oct 16, 2014 at 13:14

"As a society we must ask ourselves: how can it be that people who live in Germany and... born and raised here, are supporters of a brutal, inhuman and fundamentalist group..."

Because as a society, you decided that it would be a violation of your PC, relativistic philosophy to expect people of another culture to adopt political and social values. You even branded people as racist for daring to criticize Islamists. So, now you have what you asked for -- a subculture within your own borders who have fostered the brutal fundamentalism endemic to their Middle Eastern culture. Remember, you INSISTED it was wrong to expect them to adopt your societal mores. And now you wonder why this is happening? To repeat a trendy phrase, your chickens are coming home to roost.

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Ken Arts • Oct 16, 2014 at 06:40

Like the US, maybe citizens who want to leave to fight and instill trouble in other countries, need to be seized after going through checkpoints and have there premises searched to identify those who would sell their services as fighters, to wage war on others. Either put them into custody, in the countries they are exploiting, or trade them for our citizens. The danger they bring back to their own countries after participating in the killings, will only spread to fuel problems at home. Personal assets also need to be seized to pay for their incarceration.

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Plamen • Oct 16, 2014 at 06:02

Ms Claudia Roth of the Green Party, it's not the German internal problems or society to be blamed, rather its liberty and liberalism which allows - under freedoms, rights and rule of law - such groups and ideologies to thrive on local soil.If similar groups were to be ever formed in a Muslim society as its "opposites", they would have so far been merely beheaded.Which doesn't mean that German society must be changed in an opposite direction of its freedoms, rights and rule of law.

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Norman • Oct 16, 2014 at 01:51

The German politicians need to educate themselves, by first reading the Qur'an. This will open their eyes and then they will understand why Muslims do what they do. The Qur'an is the diving force in Islam.

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Forrester • Oct 16, 2014 at 01:12

These radicals who are causing the problems in Germany, UK, Australia, France, and elsewhere, should be allowed to leave their countries to fight. BUT NOT ALLOWED TO RETURN. Also remove their nationality, and leave them stateless in the Middle East.

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Peter Spencer • Oct 16, 2014 at 01:09

The main problem I see is the potential for violence from the hard right wing in all of Europe, not just Germany. Any Islamic violence will be seen as an excuse for counter-terror by the neo-fascist groups.

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Peter Spencer Peter Spencer • Nov 11, 2014 at 21:50

Further to my comments about radical Islam being used as an excuse for a violent radical right-wing and fascist response, the main problem I see is the radicalisation of the more moderate, mainstream Islamic populations in Europe and elsewhere in a counter-response to such violence.

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K Kelly • Oct 16, 2014 at 00:26

While Germany (and the EU) debates and wrings its hands over what to do and how did this happen, the Islamists forge ahead with their goal of extending sharia law throughout Europe and beyond. It would be interesting to know how many of these Islamists who are "armed to the teeth" are receiving generous German welfare benefits while they plot to overthrow a tolerant government. The EU countries need to cut off the welfare for these terrorists - and to their families when they travel to Syria - as those payments are basically funding jihad. Wake up, Western World - in the name of Political Correctness, you are sleepwalking into sharia law!

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rodney allsworth • Oct 15, 2014 at 18:38

gee, to think this statement takes -analysts- to discover the facts of Islamic hatreds,- quote- Some analysts believe that rival Muslim groups in Germany are deliberately exploiting the ethnic and religious tensions in the Middle East to stir up trouble on the streets of Europe. my my, one only has to read of the wars going on at present to see that the sectarian hatreds of the Islamic world is the essence of all Islamic nations wars, the whole middle east Arab states for a start detest and vehemently hate the Persian-Iranian Shia Islamic sect, to deny that is to be blinded and deaf, then there are the differing sects of any one Islamic nation for instance, Iraq is torn between Shia and Sunnies.to -wonder- if the Muslims sects are setting up each other in Germany or any other nation is simply mind-blowing, OF COURSE THEY ARE, its just that politicians don't want to believe the truth, let alone the facts.rod qld aust

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Mark Matthias • Oct 15, 2014 at 15:35

It is tiring hearing complaints about the results of allowing Islamists to enter, takeover, and commit perpetrations. They state their purpose plainly -- to subdue the to would under the authority of their god, Allah, if necessary by the sword.So now the lives of German born officials are being threatened by beheading, by guests.
As yet everyone is playing politically good manners; not meaning a word of it. It is impossible to miss the biblical similarity between the aggression of this regime and the anti-Christ, with Judaism and Christianity as the main obstacle in their crosshairs. Of course some would call it a coincidence.

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steven L • Oct 15, 2014 at 14:53

The left/Far Left death-wish through political correctness at the hands of Islamists! For the left the enemy is the non-left. PC has now become the preferred weapon of the Islamists. They must thank the left for this great gift.The left will perish by their own sword!

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Jossef • Oct 15, 2014 at 12:22

Claudia Roth, Vice-President of the German Parliament, states that "As a society we must ask ourselves: how can it be that people who live in Germany and... born and raised here, are supporters of a brutal, inhuman and fundamentalist group such as the IS and attack peaceful protestors with knives, sticks and machetes."

So Ms. Roth is astonished that Islamist Fascism appears in a "civilized" place like Germany. Really? This demonstrates the typical hypocrisy characteristic to Germans; the country that is responsible for the worst atrocities in human history and where neo-Fascism is now back in vogue, but where people express real outrage only at Fascism from outsiders but consider themselves still highly civilized.

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Lee Jossef • Aug 26, 2015 at 10:07

I live in Germany, and was thinking the same thing reading this. There is a level of delusional thinking and collective narcissism that is astounding. I am constantly faced with 'the emperor has no clothes' type situations here.

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Heidi • Oct 15, 2014 at 11:46

As I do believe that Wolfgang Bosbach, CDU, is apalled, I do not believe that Claudia Roth from the Greens means what she says in public. Her party and the Social Democrats paved the way for what we are facing in Germany now. Since the Christian Democratic Party (CDU) of Angela Merkel moved to the far left and stuck their head in the sand like an ostrich in regards to salafists and jihadists violence, I am surprised that the German population has not elected to move to the right. This will however undoubtedly take place in the near future because even the most level and open minded German is tired of jihadists and salafists fighting their war in Germany.

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Solusipse • Oct 15, 2014 at 11:38

It is increasingly evident, if it wasn't before, that a malignant strain of Islam is rapidly metastasizing and threatening the entire corpus, not of "western" as many journalists would characterize it, but worldwide progressive civilization. Rather than the tenets of the enlightenment typified by the dignity of all individuals, regardless of race, creed, religion or gender, and their freedom to self actualize and thereby contribute to the advancement of human knowledge and culture, this vicious and virulent ideology enlists uneducated and impressionable adolescents, who may already be susceptible to violent expressions of newly discovered power, to infiltrate and infect healthy societies by savage displays of inhuman violence calculated to frighten any opposition into islam which I understand means, submission. However, the submission is not to the will of any version of god known to mankind or any of its enduring manifestations, but merely to yet another mechanism for tyrannical control of unfortunate masses of people deprived of food, housing, education and human dignity to serve the corrupt, venal and deranged masters who see themselves as the newest mutation of ubermenschen. How ironic that the Germans are having this plague visited upon them.

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Mayven • Oct 15, 2014 at 09:35

70 Years ago... An educated cultured religious society of human beings were not good enough...?NOW let's see how Germans handle this dilemma?

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John Thomas • Oct 15, 2014 at 09:31

Our dear Melanie Phillips coined the word 'Londonistan' in 2006 and published a book with that title.Foresight or what?Where next?

Marseille I think already is but Romeistan, Paristan, Berlinistan? Who knows

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Hanna • Oct 15, 2014 at 08:07

Europe, in general, and Germany, in particular, were much better off with their Jewish citizens. Unfortunately, they (the Jews) are always the first to be picked on. Hanna.